She looked at him sharply in her turn, then laughed too. He had been clever! She rather admired him for it; though, if he thought he had gained any advantage, he was mistaken.
'Why not, monsieur?' she answered, coolly helping herself from the box. 'As I have to see the topazes, I may as well smoke while you are fetching them.'
She threw herself into an arm-chair and nodded at him. But when the pink topazes came, as they did come to her, after a minute or two, she stood up again in the intensity of her admiration. There were other jewels in the quaint little Indian casket which, with an ill grace, he had brought back with him from the office;--among them a string of remarkably fine pearls--but she never even looked at them. The topaz dewdrops absorbed her. He had been right! They were the one thing wanting.
The only question that remained was, briefly, how much she could afford to give for them.
As she stood calculating, as only women of her type can calculate, Mr. Lucanaster watched her with an easy smile, thinking what a curious hold little stones--which to him only meant so much money--had upon humanity. There was a ruby, for instance, in that very casket, which had taken him three years to wile away from a minor member of the Royal Family. Then there was the emerald----
A sudden sound of distant voices echoed through the stillness of the night, and Mrs. Chris looked up from the pink dew, startled.
'I wonder what that is?' she said, pausing. 'I wish that man Jones hadn't told his foolish tales. He has made me nervous, quite nervous.'
Mr. Lucanaster moved a step nearer. 'You needn't be afraid with me, Jenny,' he said, attempting sentiment, 'even if there was----'
He got no further, for the figure of a very old native, withered, bent, dressed (or undressed) in the nondescript garb of a scullion, showed at the door, then advanced with furtive haste and equally furtive importance.
'Khodawund!' it said toothlessly and with joined hands. 'It is about to come again. This slave saw it then--in '57. He was khânsâman then to Ricketts-sahib bahadur, who was killed----'